Chaos theory rewlz

This morning on the BBC4 News, amid the usual murder and mayhem stories, a thoughtful vignette by Humphrey Hawksley about Ohio, one of the "key battle states" in the US presidential election. ("A battle state" means neither of the two parties in the race have successfully managed to gerrymander or homogenify the state according to their colour).
It portrayed the smalltown midwest election campaign as genteel, polite and mellow, and ultimately about personality, rather than policy, that conforms best with the local ethos.
It really scared me that smalltown midwest America, which is not always portrayed as the most sane or sophisticated places on earth, is going to determine the election outcome that will affect all of us around the world.
It must be a case study in chaos theory of a hanging chad and a mildly ruffled feather causing firestorms elsewhere.

Those sandal movies keep coming

Since we are in the age of empire again, it's not suprising Hollywood is making films about earlier versions.
The fun with films set in the classical age (i.e. the time before those superstitious "people of the book" got hold of our civilisation and ruined it) is how they handle the rampant homo exuberance of the main characters such as Achilles and Alexander and thus whether it would be actually worthwhile to go and see the films.
Now I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing Colin Alexander Farrell (the tattooed one) getting it on with Jared Hephaeston Leto (the other one), but a nagging little voice in my ear says chance would be a fine thing.

Why do we always have to wait for the porno versions of classical stories to get some truth on the screen? If you ever have the chance to see Glaadiator, do not miss it. It's a fine tale making mischief of Russell Crowe's pathetic attempt, and queer as fuck!

Bad taste advisory from Arts & Letters Daily

I always suspected that academics in their spare time hang out on unsavoury and salacious websites. It would be a dreamjob if you could do it for a living, of course, but I bet it warmed the cockles of Dennis Dutton's heart to read a riveting Observer article by a man who claimed he has slept with over 1,000 prostitutes. (Go read it, it's excellent)
As a man who has not paid for sex (and get chastised for it by said sex connoisseur Sebastian Horsley) I was intrigued by the difference in his world compared to my queer world one. If, as a gay/queer man, you are in reasonable shape and sound of body and mind, there is really very little need to pay for sex. As my forays into Auckland's gay sex scene have shown elsewhere on this blog, there is ample opportunity and choice for getting it off without the need to pay your partner. I can't vouch for the male escort agencies because I have never used them or visited them. But, as he mentioned, "lust over love and falling in a woman's arms without falling into her hands" is very much an alien concept when there is a whole range of fuckbuddies just itching to get it on with you.

The whore fuck is the purest fuck of all.

Maybe for straight men it is, but in queer terms every male on male fuck is pretty damn pure.

Local elections

The local body and health board election voting papers arrived yesterday and what a depressing line up it is we have to choose from.
Since our island is in the Auckland City area we get to choose the mayor from among an assortment of National Party have-beens - a liberal one and an illiberal one - and an entrepreneur bent on not upsetting the chicken coop.
I voted for Lindsay Perigo's love child (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that one!). I reckon giving that young whippersnapper an early taste of local body politics will immunise him against parochial politics for life.

Now the race for our council seat is much more interesting. There is real choice there. Considering it's only one seat out of a couple of dozen on the Council that we have direct influence on, a little fun in voting is warranted. My man is Rocky Rhodes from Team Rooster, an outfit that wants to break away ("de-amalgamate" in local body speak) from the big city and run island affairs independently. Our sitting Councillor, of course, unhappy of losing her cushy seat in the town hall, is arguing fiercely against going it alone, claiming $8 million in rate money would be insufficient to run our affairs ourselves. Many a third world country would be more than happy to have a budget as large as that to tackle potholed roads and to set up a planning bureaucracy. Opponents of UDI have been scaremongering by releasing accounts "proving" the city made such huge investments on the island that we would be incapable of servicing in one year. They obviously haven't heard of depreciation rules, or is it just mischief making?
Manukau city candidates and the Mayor of Waitakere City have already said they would gladly have Waiheke Island in their local body area. I bet they would, but over my dead body!

Prince Harry

Good to hear the royals are not completely useless in this day and age and some of them have got some decency in them not to sit on their royal asses all day long, moaning about the subjects refusing to be subjugated.
Now Prince Harry, the only royal I would consider sleeping with (now that had you thinking about whom you would consider!), is to follow his mother in spending a lot of time doing charity work, especially in poor countries and for people living with Aids.
In the meantime, they have him joining the army next year. Bet he looks good in uniform too.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I know, I know, it's a little late in the day and the thing has been analysed to death, but last night I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11.
It played at our most wonderful local cinema on Waiheke Island, and it only cost $9 to get in. The cinema must be one of the coolest places on earth to watch movies. You can sit in spacious second hand sofas, just like at home, and bring in your drinks, evening dinner, or whatever, and you don't disturb your neighbours at all. A treasure!
I thought the documentary well put together, quite sober in tone and very much in the vein of what the BBC does in its flagship current affairs documentary series Panorama. I thought it a good summary of Bush's presidency, perhaps a little light on analysis of the Princes of Neo-Con Darkness behind the throne, but certainly not a lot of cheap laughs.
Not something you'd soon see on The History Channel, I suspect, but rather on any public television station worth its charter.

Sex in the news

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Pissing off Destiny Church

If the Civil Unions Bill didn't tickle your fancy, or thought all that state sanctioning of relationships was a little too bourgeois for your taste, or laughed merrily at those Destiny Church goers who got their knickers in a twist over it, a student newspaper called Salient (thanks, Fionnaigh) asked its readers to come up with Bills to piss off Destiny Church even more.
My suggestions:
- Amend the Marriage Bill to ban divorce, as the best protection of heterosexual marriage (and it would have prevented former rigthwing stalwart Ariana Huffington going all strange - running against Ah-nuld, what was she thinking? - and leftwing had her husband not been recruited into the gay lifestyle. Thank you, Patriotboy, for the links)
- Amend the Charities Act, so churches whose main function is to collect money and manage property pay proper tax and rates (this is an equal opportunity tax reform, of course, Destiny Church will be able to pay their dues but so will all other pseudo-charities)
- Amend the Electoral Act so divorced people will not be allowed to stand for parliament (surely Destiny could find a non-divorced candidate to field against Tim Barnett?).
- (my longtime personal favourite) Change the Bill of Rights so we can have "freedom from religion" instead of "freedom of religion". I can't see why the state should promote personal lifestyle choices such as believing in superstition. Religious practice would be far safer in the privacy of your own home (or God's house) than being paraded in streets in front of the children.

Find out what level of hell you are doomed to

Thank you, Anthony, for the link to the Dante's Inferno Test, where one can find out what horrors await you after leaving this vale of tears.
I had an inkling, based on my queer sexual behaviour, I'd be lucky to be kept away from the 7th level, where my fellow "sodomites writhe in pain". But no, the test score found me destined for level 6 instead:

Level 6 - The City of Dis. You approach Satan's wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell.

Guess I will have something to aspire to when I'm there.

Fisking Garth "Vader" George

The Herald's resident old doddery Garth was at it again this week, a few choice extracts:

Most New Zealanders are uncomfortable with the idea of giving an unnecessary legitimacy to same-sex relationships.

It's only a hunch of his, though. He probably did a straw poll in his Avondale Heights RSA.

There are only 10,000 New Zealanders in such relationships - less than a minuscule 0.25 per cent of our entire population.

There are only 10,000 New Zealanders in Gore. Shall we use the last of the Kupe gas to get rid of them and thus remove the hillbilly stain it smirches on our national image?

There is no need to give same-sex couples a status in law similar to that of married couples, because a few minor changes to existing law would overcome the most often trotted out excuses.

Which is exactly what the Omnibus Bill does.

The spearhead of opposition to the Civil Union Bill has come into the hands of the Destiny Church, whose leaders have never learned the lesson that it's not what you say but how you say it that counts.

And Garth has mastered that art so well he is allowed spout his opinion in dulcet tones in the biggest newspaper in New Zealand; gets paid for it; and gets readers to pay for it.
Geez, that's one better on Brian Tamaki (but our Brian is on the main television channel, he doesn't need newspapers - the image comes before the Word at the Destiny Church).

It's a pity that Destiny has received so little support from other church groups and denominations.

Another reader of the newspaper suggested the reason for this: "With all this business about civil unions, I am just thankful that the Anglican Church's founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, and his wife Anne Boleyn, and his wife Jane Seymour, and his wife Anne of Cleves, and his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on traditional Christian marriage." Nuff said!

The heterophobic homosexual community [...] is geared to react at a moment's notice to even the mildest criticism of its lifestyle and aspirations.

Oh George, don't do yourself down! "mildest"? You disappoint me. Give me some vitriolic criticism! Maybe you amuse me then.

Poor Whakahuihui Vercoe, the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, who gave from his heart his view of homosexuality.

That poor old senile sod was dealt with by the gay mafia ages ago.

I would bet a year's salary that if a referendum were held tomorrow on whether the bill should be passed, the answer would be a resounding "no" by a huge majority.

If you held a referendum to bring in stringing up all those promiscuous non-procreative gays, or all those promiscuous and very procreative other minorities, or just to get rid of Asian drivers, you'd get an easy majority too. Nice to see George spelling out that he's in favour of majoritarian rule rather than democracy. Our society and politics are in safe hands with pensioners like George who have nothing to do all day but think up the latest thing that might frighten their horses.

This is not a human rights issue, not a moral issue, not a religious issue: it is simply a physical issue [...] to ensure the continuation of the human race by the procreation of children.

Can I be the celebrant presiding over the dissolution of Garth George's marriage, since his wife, being post-menopausal, is incapable of doing the proper physical thing and breed? Their marriage, by Ol' George's logic, is a sham and can't be legally recognised anymore as his couplings can't result in any breeding.
My guess is that this "biological" basis of marriage laws is just a ruse by dirty old men who want to shack up with younger women, since there is a better chance of procreation.